Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook attends the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's 2025 Jackson Hole economic symposium. [Source: Reuters]

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook will file a lawsuit to prevent President Donald Trump from firing her, a lawyer for the embattled central bank official said on Tuesday, kicking off what could be a protracted legal fight over the White House’s effort to shape U.S. monetary policy.

The statement was issued a day after Trump said he would fire Cook, the first Black woman to serve on the central bank’s governing body, for alleged “deceitful and potentially criminal conduct” related to mortgages she took out in 2021.

Trump’s attempt to remove her, unprecedented in the 111-year history of the nominally independent U.S. Federal Reserve Board, is consistent with his style of breaking norms and prompting opponents to challenge him in court.

It follows other largely successful efforts to bring other elements of the U.S. government under his direct control. Since returning to office in January, the president has overseen the departure of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, dismantled several agencies and withheld billions of dollars of spending authorised by Congress.

Trump pressured the Fed to lower interest rates during his first term in the White House and he has escalated that campaign in recent months. The president has demanded that rates be cut by several percentage points and threatened to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, although he recently backed down from that.

Cook’s departure would allow Trump to pick a majority of the Fed’s seven-member board, including two incumbents and the pending nomination of White House economist Stephen Miran. Trump said he may consider Miran, whom he nominated for a temporary seat on the Fed board that is due to expire in January, for Cook’s seat should it become vacant. The Wall Street Journal reported that former World Bank Group President David Malpass, a longtime Trump ally, was also discussed for the job.

The Fed said in a statement that Cook and other board members serve 14-year tenures and cannot be removed easily from office, in order to ensure that monetary policy decisions are based on economic data and “the long-term interests of the American people.”

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